“Go away, Polly,” I huffed, then fell back onto the bed in dramatic fashion. I grabbed Noah’s pillow and hugged it to my chest as I inhaled his scent and sighed contentedly. “I’m sleeping.” There was still a chance I could recapture my dream if she’d stay quiet and just disappear.
“Not anymore, you’re not,” she said, and then I heard her skip across the room to do God only knew what, but I swore if she jumped on me, I was going to give her a thunder flick to the forehead, followed up by a wet willy to the ear. She was way too bubbly in the mornings, and probably deserved it for that fact alone, but I was biding my time so that I’d have the element of surprise on my side.
“What do you want?” I half whined as she pulled the drapes back and let the bright morning sun assault my comfy-cozy surroundings. I practically hissed and buried my face in my pillow. Then thoughts of vampires filtered into my brain, which then led to thoughts of the vampiric sex Noah and I had had in the entertainment room.
We should so do that again.
The Cooch perked up like ten thousand milligrams of caffeine had been pumped into her. Slut. I guess she was seconding the motion.
“Well, for starters, I’d like for you to do something with that godawful stuff you call hair,” Polly said, and I felt her delicately lift one tangled lock of it before dropping it again and rubbing her hands together. You’d think she thought I had cooties or something. “And then we need to have a talk.”
“About what?” My sleepy voice was muffled by the pillow, and I almost gagged when my morning breath came back at me. The hair could wait; I needed some toothpaste and a toothbrush.
“Stuff. Now get your little butt up before I go get a pitcher of ice water and throw it on you,” she said, and smacked me on the ass.
I sat up with a huff and narrowed my eyes at her before I got right in her face. “I really can’t stand you, Polly. You know that?”
Once I’d showered—pleasuring myself twice with the help of my nifty little Crawford bullet—shaved, and, yes, brushed my teeth, I went back out into the bedroom, where Polly had already made the bed and evidently picked out my clothes for the day. I dressed and threw my hair up into a messy bun before I made my way downstairs.
“Polly?” I called, having no clue where she would be.
“In here!” she yelled from the kitchen.
When I entered, I found she already had coffee made and had poured me a cup. “Wow, you almost look human.”
“You may have just saved yourself from getting your butt kicked,” I countered, because the best part of waking up really was Folgers in your cup. However, I highly doubted the rich aroma I smelled was Folgers. Noah would’ve had nothing but the best gourmet coffee known to man in his house.
I took a seat across from her at the kitchen island and started shoveling sugar into my coffee. “So what’s so important that you had to disturb my beauty sleep?”
“We’ll get to that. First of all, I want to know if you tried the deep-throat thing,” she asked, ready to dish.
“Yep. And I do believe you’d make one hell of a Yoda, and not just because you’re vertically challenged.”
“A quick learner you were, young Skywalker. Or should I say, young Streetwalker?” she said in her best Yoda impersonation. We both laughed, but then Polly abruptly stopped and cleared her throat. “Um, sorry,” she said with a ping of guilt on her face.
“For what?” I asked, confused.
“Oh, um, nothing.” She took a sip of her coffee.
“Uh-uh. No way. You spill. Now.” I pointed a finger at her.
Polly set her cup down and heaved a great sigh. “Oh, God. He’s going to kill me. I just know it,” she said as she nervously wrung her hands.
“Who? Noah?” I knew that was whom she was talking about. “For what, Polly?”
She scrunched her face up like she was about to say something she didn’t really want to say. Then she covered her face with her hands and peeped out at me between her fingers. “I know, Lanie. I know everything.”
“What’s everything, munchkin? You’re not giving me anything to go on here,” I said with a roll of my hand, hoping to encourage her to keep the deets coming.
“I know about the contract that you and Noah have. I know that he paid two million dollars for you to come here to live with him for the next two years. I know that you two aren’t a legitimate couple. I know about the sex. Oh, God, Lanie, I know about everything, and I really wish I didn’t because it’s just too much, too overwhelming for someone like me to handle,” she blurted out in one long strand of frantic words.
My hands were shaking so badly I had to set down the coffee mug I was holding, for fear that I might drop it, or throw it across the room at a wall, or whatever. “He told you?” My voice was relatively calm, which surprised the heck out of me.
“No, no, no, no, nooooo. Please, Lanie, it’s not his fault,” she pleaded desperately, like she was trying to fix everything. “See, I do all his household accounting, and I saw the money transfer and confronted him about it. I put two and two together and ascertained that the money was transferred around the same time you showed up. And then, well, you know how I am already. I started to do some digging. But, to be fair, if you had just told me the truth when we first met, I wouldn’t have had to. I mean, you were talking about Elvis, Tupac, MJ, drag queens … And Noah wasn’t any help, either. When I asked him about the money, he said you used to be a man and it was for your sex change operation, and—”